Appointment Summary

We had our WTF appt. yesterday and it went very well. They answered all of our questions, but it really comes down to they don't have a specific reason for the failure. They believe it was the egg quality and the only sign they got that our donor's cycle was not acting as the typical young donor's cycle was that her E2 number didn't rise as fast between stim day 4-6, thus they increased her Follistim dosage and it shot right up to normal. Most donors her age they have to reduce the amount of Follistim. They said if we cycled with her again we could have a super cycle and get a lot more mature eggs, but they cannot guarantee anything. They've had other donors have 2 awesome cycles, get couples pregnant with twins and have lots of embryos to freeze, then the donor comes back and has a bad cycle. It all depends on the cohort of eggs at that time. They believe our donor has normal fertility and has all of the hormone levels to indicate she would be a good donor. A second cycle could be totally different. They said we have to do the soul searching to decide if we would want to cycle with her again or risk it on an anonymous donor who may have had a good cycle with another couple, but whom we will never know, who most likely won't have all of the personality, physical and cultural characteristics of Eggchick.

They don't believe I have anything wrong with me that is killing embryos. They don't buy into the antibody theory at all. They've done blind studies sent to external labs with people who supposedly had killer cells, and in the end more people who supposedly had the killer cells got pregnant and had live babies than the other group. It was a good meeting, I really like my doctors, but my husband is much less trusting. My doctors are very much my type of people - good talkers, very personable, etc. Tarzan is an engineer and challenged them on a lot of things. He doesn't care how nice they are and how good of a game they talk, he wants to see data, procedures for optimizing data, etc. The doctors explained that they look at the data every day, all day long. The doctors and nurses are in a room everyday reviewing all of the patient cycles. Our data goes up on a screen and they make the call to adjust the meds, etc. They tried to explain that biology has more variables than manufacturing, etc (which Tarzan doesn't buy). They also do a custom protocol for each woman, as opposed to some clinics who use a computer to punch in the stats and run everyone on pretty much the same protocol.

We talked about an FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer)and since we have now maxed out our insurance he said we could do a natural FET so I wouldn't need to take estrace and I'd only need 2-3 ultrasounds max. They would supplement me with progesterone suppositories, not PIO. We also talked about not using the frozen embryo, but doing another fresh cycle and trying to bank more frozen ones. They said I could start in September, but I really need more of a break.

We did get a copy of our records, but realized that we do not have the donor's records so I'm going to ask her to request a copy. I want the copy of her cycle that the docs were showing us yesterday - showing her follicle counts, E2, meds dosage for the entire cycle day by day. I found out the University of Michigan does not have a donor program, so if/when we feel like getting a second opinion, we will probably go to Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn which was recommended to me by a friend who had DE twins. I just want someone else to review the donor cycle and give us their opinion on the protocol, the donor's E2 levels, etc.

However for now I just want to step away from all of this and move on with my life. I am still trying to convince Tarzan to go to Italy for a week or two, but Mr. Frugal is not budging at the moment. Oh and yes we'd have a place to stay. His parents own a house there. If not, we'll at least take a week's driving trip somewhere late in August.

Tomorrow we are going to take a day trip to Port Austin - which is located on the very tip of the thumb of Michigan on the water. We almost bought a cottage up there last year - I'm still hoping that someday we will.

I plan to have my new blog up and running by next week. I'll still have this one for if/when we try again, but for now I want to talk about other things in my life and focus on Tarzan and me as a couple.